Horseplay

by Cam Daly

  The Louse stopped suddenly, like a guard dog whose leash had reached its limit. Its master knew that it wasn’t fast enough to catch her in the open, and didn’t want to let her get behind it. Broaalg's gambit had failed, and he would have to wait out the orbital strike in his citadel. The slightly depleted winglet cloud was a good thirty kilometers farther away than it had been, but still close enough for another standoff shot if he tried to escape.

  Kery, however, was much closer. With her skin almost jet black now, she swam along the bottom of the deep lake. She had shut off her gravitic drives when the winglets approached the surface of the water, then dove deep to evade detection as they left. Now she was behind the Louse.

  “I didn’t think that was taking much of a chance. The winglets have my cannon and can still shoot Broaalg down if he tries to escape. They don’t have any reason to be looking for me. I’ve lost a half flight of winglets, but have regained the element of surprise.”

  “Which will be irrelevant if Broaalg doesn’t survive. Listen, I still have to tell you about my analysis of the battles in system here. The Molu-“

  A War Room advisor interrupted her. “Impact imminent.”

  Both women turned to watch the enormous virtual displays. A pearl necklace of nuclear detonations stitched the upper atmosphere, Lice using everything they had against the falling projectiles. The daytime sky was cut in half by the meteoric streaks, deceptively slow from far away.

  Then, in an instant, they struck. Brilliant flashes turned to monstrous clouds of smoke and debris at points all across the eastern half of the city. Keryapt felt them through the lake bed as a quick succession of quakes.

  But not as many or as powerful as expected.

  Shadow focused on the analysis coming in. “The Lice actually stopped several of them. Or reduced them to the point that they mostly burned up. But there’s no sign of the Lice at all - they might have physically moved to intercept.”

  Kery emerged from the lake at a run, heading for a parking lot nearby. “Give me damage assessment for the highways into the city, performance data on every vehicle in front of me and a connection to Ormlan.” Her body altered its appearance to roughly match the handful of humans cowering nearby. The single surviving Louse was a dozen kilometers behind her, still focused on her winglets.

  “Delegating, displaying and connecting. You’re taking a human car?”

  “Thanks. Yes, since Horseplay can’t run as fast as the Interloper and I don’t want to use gravitics until I have to. This one will do.”

  She disabled the locks on the sleek red car, pushed the seat all the way back and climbed in. “See if there is any way to directly connect to the controls. Pushing my feet on things is so clumsy.”

  “I will. But Kery, I still haven’t told you about the Molu ships…damn, Ormlan is on.”

  “ZESS. We see your position. Do not try to enter the city. Our next strike will obliterate them.”

  “Sorry, but I’m already in the city. Hold your strike if you want me to be able to help you after I’m done here.”

  “You lie! We see your drive signatures. You are forty-”

  “That’s where my weapons are. Not me.”

  Ormlan suddenly sounded tired. “You leave us no choice, slippery little fish. Say goodbye-“

  On the Planning Stage, Shadow slammed a button and Ormlan’s words slowed to a crawl. Keryapt was suddenly dizzy as an external source pushed her past Horseplay's recommended mental processing rate.

  “Whoa. That’s…what’s going on?”

  Shadow didn’t address her mother. She was facing the glyph in the corner of the Planning Stage. “Admiralty override - blackout scenario. Sol going dark. Grant Active full command of all assets in system. Full secure datastore release.”

  Rumor had it that the ranks of former Actives which made up the Admiralty, the governing body of Fleet Four, were equipped with cryogenic systems which let them run their minds at speeds of fifty times their organic equivalent. Whatever their multiplier was, it couldn’t have been that different from Keryapt’s. The response from the Admiralty must have been decided in advance, or their trust in the pair of mother and daughter was greater than Keryapt expected.

  The imperious voice boomed through the War Room, leaving no room for uncertainty. “Granted.”

  Kery’s view of the War Room froze for the second time that day. The amount of data being loaded into Horseplay was immense, and there was almost no bandwidth to spare for visualization. Shadow’s form simplified to a sketch of colors and lines as she spoke.

  “Ormlan is about to cut us off again, perhaps across the entire system. But - listen. The Molu attacks against the Craven. They won every encounter, quickly and perfectly. The Molu don’t have any superior stealth or movement technology, just awareness of where the Craven are. In every single case, perfect awareness. Perfect targeting. That’s impossible, unless the Craven ships were unknowingly giving their positions away.”

  Ormlan, operating at normal biological speed, got his next word out. “-to-“

  “Tanglecomms.” Keryapt realized what her daughter was leading up to.

  “Yes. The Craven think Sousa’s big discovery was just blocking tanglecomm communications. But somehow the Molu took it a step further. They can pinpoint any quantum entanglement system.”

  “That’s - never mind.” Keryapt was overwhelmed for a moment as control over everything in the Sol system was given to her. New operational command structures revealed themselves. Combat data was pouring in, including the brand new fact that a Molu attack ship had just fired a salvo of missiles at the Belt Factory, leaving her with only one major asset. Stopgap.

  Ormlan again. “-your-“

  Shadow. Even more urgently. “Kery! Ignore all that and listen. The Craven were just a distraction - the Molu are the key. You have to get that technology from Ormlan or Sousa or whoever. If it’s something we can understand and adapt before the Craven attack, we can perfectly target their ships and missiles. Even inside human fields. We can survive.”

  Keryapt listened but also started issuing commands of her own. Stopgap was built out of the frame of the original Observatory, a simple unit dispatched to the system seventy years earlier after humanity had detonated its first nuclear weapons. It had a tanglecomm block which was only used for its infrequent status updates to Fleet, but the individual missiles didn’t. The secret Molu technology couldn’t locate them separately.

  Shadow’s form had simplified to a mere outline of herself. Her voice was flattened and almost unrecognizable. “Please make it back.” She collapsed as her cranial pod overheated, preventing her from hearing any response her mother might have made.

  Keryapt triggered Stopgap before the Molu could target its tanglecomm block as well. Two hundred and fifty six antimatter-driven nuclear missiles leapt from their protective cocoons and accelerated on needle drive towards Earth. She could update its target catalog after it was in flight, but right now it was aimed at every major center of human civilization and scientific research.

  Ormlan finished his sentence. “-Fleet.”

  The Molu human field flew in the face of the laws of physics that Fleet scientists understood, let alone the limited comprehension of most humans. All tanglecomm communications in Sol system ceased instantly.

  The entire War Room was instantly empty. Keryapt stood alone inside a gray globe a kilometer across, staring at the empty void where Shadow and her data maps had been a moment earlier.

  Sienaly’s realization had given them just barely enough time to prepare for the loss of contact. Kery fervently hoped she would have the chance to tell her daughter just how proud she was of her.

  CHAPTER 15

  Connor started to reflexively answer the ringing phone but stopped when he saw the call was from an unfamiliar area code. He held it up for DeVries to see, but all it elicited was a shrug. He couldn’t imagine anyone knew his number other than Kery, so after the third ring he decided to answer.

&nbs
p; “Hello?” The sound coming through was heavily distorted. His phone had a full strength signal, so the issue was on the other end. “Kery? Is that you?”

  After a few seconds of garbled nonsense, he heard something intelligible. “What was that about Vegas?”

  At the mention of the city’s name, the VSE executive started fiddling with his own phone.

  Finally the connection cleared. “…said I’m heading into Las Veg… Broaalg. Human field is blocking everything. Tanglecomms are out. Stopgap is coming.”

  “Stopgap is…how long do we have?”

  “Around 30 minutes. Don’t worry. I can stop it even though a decoherence - human field is covering the planet. Stopgap listens for certain specific signals while it's in approach mode. The important thing for you to understand is that I had to remove Horseplay’s tanglecomm system. I’m not connected to the winglet with you any more. You’ll have to give it very clear orders. It isn’t good at figuring things out.” She sounded increasingly urgent. “I have to focus on driving. I’ll call again soon. Just protect Park and Sousa. Having control over them might be the key to everything.”

  “Driving? Like, in a car?” He was confused. She could fly.

  “A three hundred thousand dollar sports car that I borrowed. I’m driving into the city at its top speed through immobile traffic in a hurricane force dust storm. Visibility is about five meters.”

  “Oh. Okay.” That did sound like the kind of thing that a person should really pay attention to, even her.

  She hung up.

  DeVries got off his phone at almost the same time. “It sounds like your girlfriend has been busy. Did she say how much time we have?”

  Connor looked at his phone for a few seconds longer, taking in everything Kery had just told him. He replied without looking up. “30 minutes. And I’m not sure ‘girl’ is the right word for her.”

  She had launched a planet-killer weapon towards Earth. He wasn’t sure that “friend” was correct either, but he didn’t say that out loud. He would find out in the next half hour.

  #

  Broaalg’s Lice might have been sacrificed, but the Eternal Night was still mostly intact, testament to the Craven prowess for self preservation. Its world record-setting sheath of neon and glass was irrecoverably shattered and smoke billowed from fires on a score of levels, but the damage was far less than it might have been without the Lice protecting it. A large portion of the Molu meteor attack had fallen just short.

  The Eternal Night’s positioning on the western side of Las Vegas’ international airport coincidentally saved a great many human lives. The meteors had come from the east which meant that a large amount of the destruction was inflicted on the airport runways and parking lots rather than the intended target area. Titanic clouds of smoke and dust spread south and east across half of the city. Kery raced through that cover in her stolen car, choosing a path that would conceal her from visual detection or identification.

  She had also deactivated the drives and active sensors on Horseplay and the two winglets with her to hide her presence. Driving through the smoke was much trickier without radar or lidar, especially with human gawkers starting to wander away from their stopped cars. She slalomed wildly around them, missing one man by an arm’s length, and left the highway at the earliest opportunity for the airport connector road.

  She felt a moment of relief as she got off, but it was dashed away when a break in the clouds of dust revealed cars heading straight for her on both sides of the road. She cursed them, dodging crazily and wishing for a moment she was back in the Interloper. She could have just run straight for the hotel instead of dealing with the terrified drivers. Or just vaulted over the oncoming cars. She persevered, managing to only lose a side view mirror as she careened off a parked car.

  A few seconds later she knew why cars were driving on the wrong side. The roads around and under the airport’s main runway were littered with damaged and abandoned vehicles, creating an obstacle course for those still desperate to get away. She cursed again and left the streets entirely behind. A quick scraping bounce up an embankment and through the airport’s security fence left her on the tarmac itself.

  There was now nothing between her and Eternal Night except three kilometers of cratered runway, the hopefully-inoperable remains of a few Lice and the wreckage of at least one plane. She needed to cross the distance before any defenses in the hotel decided she was something worth shooting at. Without using any active sensors.

  In theory she should be there in thirty seconds.

  #

  “Connor, seriously, you have to come see the news.” Sousa’s voice was urgent from the other side of the door. “They are saying that terrorists are fighting ESWAT in downtown San Francisco, and half of Las Vegas just got blown up by a nuclear bomb or meteor or something.”

  Connor approached the door but kept his eyes on DeVries as the man came closer to listen. “It got blown up just now, or a few minutes ago?” The difference was significant.

  “Which one? Las Vegas?”

  “Yes, Vegas. Kery is in Vegas. Mezerello is in San Francisco.” If Kery had been blown up, no one could call off Stopgap.

  “Umm…the ‘Live’ coverage has been on for a couple minutes, so I guess it was maybe 5 minutes ago?”

  Connor let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. What Sousa had seen was before her call. She was probably still okay.

  DeVries quietly asked the question that Connor wished he had asked Kery. “Is there any way for her to set it up so that if she doesn’t make it then Stopgap control goes to Mezerello?”

  “I don’t know.” If he asked her, would she? DeVries was making a lot of sense.

  #

  Two kilometers until Eternal Night. She planned how to how get out of the car if it was hit by beams and use it as a shield the rest of the way.

  One and a half. The first fire trucks were rushing towards the burning jet off to her right. People were jumping on to slides from one end. She hoped the plane had just landed and its fuel tanks were near empty, for their sake.

  One kilometer. She thought about missiles and projectiles. The dust clouds were thicker here, but patchy. There were entire seconds where she could see the hotel ahead. They must be able to see her rapid approach.

  Five hundred meters. She had chosen a red car because it would possibly resemble a rescue vehicle. Maybe that had actually worked? The street side hotel entrance was coming into view, a hundred meters past the edge of the airport. She started a gradual turn to angle the car towards it.

  Two hundred. A pair of heavily armed remotes detached from the closest corner of the hotel and plummeted towards her. She held a winglet out the window and rippled off a few dozen micromissiles, destroying them. Now they knew she was coming, but it was too late to stop her.

  She smashed through the airport’s perimeter fence and careened up the embankment behind it, catapulting the car into the air.

  Kery pulled herself out the open window then activated her gravitic drives. The car tumbled onward, its inertia and her applied force carrying it directly into and through the security shields covering the front doors of the Eternal Night.

  A hail of beam and explosive weapons fire hit the already disintegrating car, igniting its battery packs and spreading the swath of flaming wreckage over an even larger part of the lobby. She made sure that the largest chunk of the car slammed straight into the emplaced cannon near the main elevator bank and destroyed it.

  Kery entered the lobby an instant later, dispatching her two winglets towards the single flying Craven remote in the lobby. It was a squat thing, insectile and dark. She angled herself towards the group of defending Tumorish. With her active sensors online again she could see the red lines and cones showing where their weapons were aimed. She twisted between the slowly changing maze of danger zones, plasma arcs and armor piercing bullets passing close to but never striking her.

  She landed amongst them with her arms out to each side
. Her gravitic drives ramped up to near maximum, creating a strong attraction node two meters past the end of each hand. She balanced between them as the suddenly hapless enemies were dragged together, random pieces of furniture and wrecked car piling in for good measure. She increased the power further and was rewarded with the cracking and splintering of bone and weapons. At no point did the Tumorish cry out or beg for mercy.

  The Craven remote struggled to escape the pull of her fields but her winglets took advantage of its helplessness and blew it apart. They traced complex orbits around her and away in a blur, attacking the remaining handful of Tumorish in the corners of the room. The sprinklers came on but no siren sounded.

  A second later, the power packs in the defenders’s crushed energy weapons reached their limits and the resulting blasts spread charred bits of Tumorish all over the lobby. She dropped the fields and lowered her arms to her side, searching for more threats.

  No new enemy presented itself, but an intense jamming field sprang up and cut the connection to her winglets outside the hotel. Kery initiated countermeasures, but the jamming system reacted incredibly quickly to block her.

  The moment of relative quiet was surprising. She expected a non-stop stream of Tumorish and remotes to come charging in. Her cannon was still with the winglets east of the city, but a quick scan didn’t reveal any intact weapons she could appropriate.

  From the far side of the cavernous lobby area, near the registration desk, an unarmed form stepped into view. A female voice called out above the sound of rushing water. “Miss Zess?”

  The woman seemed utterly unfazed by the carnage. From her calm demeanor and slightly higher than average body temperature, she must be Tumorish. She was the first female convert that Keryapt had seen so far.

  “Yes?” Sprinkler water washed Kery clean as she walked closer, still trying to break through the jamming. To buy more time she deliberately made her way around the larger pieces of steaming debris. If she hadn’t known it before, that was a dead giveaway that she was in the right place. No human system could block her.